See What Love The Father Has Given Us

4-15-18 (Easter 3B)

1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36b-48

See What Love the Father Has Given Us

We shift gospels this week as we continue to dwell in the resurrection - we’ve heard the testimony of Mary as she encounters the risen Christ at the tomb, as she bursts in on the fearful disciples and proclaims “I have seen the risen Lord!”  We’ve heard John’s account of the disciples’ own experiences of the resurrected Messiah, of Thomas’ need to see it for himself and experience the same thing that the other disciples have already experienced.  Today, we turn to Luke and continue to explore this one, singular day of wonders.

Luke’s narrative is similar enough to John’s in key ways - several of the women who were Jesus’ disciples come to the tomb with fragrant spices prepared for the man they’d loved and followed faithfully, but they find the stone rolled away.  Hearing the message of the angels that “He is not here, he is risen!” they run joyfully to report the good news of the resurrection to the other 11 disciples, who immediately dismiss their news as foolishness - and, really, who wouldn’t, when you stop to think about it.

Luke’s account even continues in these themes of doubt and questioning - he arguably works even more with the disciples’ doubts and fears than John does.  After the women make the first joyful proclamations of the gospel on that Easter day, Peter goes running to the tomb - absent the “disciple whom Jesus loved” in Luke’s account.  And as Peter wanders home, rubbing his head, wondering what to make of everything that he’s seen, Luke changes scenes again, moving us to the story of a couple other disciples on their way to a little town called Emmaus.  In his first direct post-resurrection appearance in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus appears next to these two befuddled disciples and walks alongside them.  Much like Mary in John’s account, these disciples don’t recognize Jesus for who he is - they talk to him like he’s a complete stranger and they are amazed that he has no clue what has happened in Jerusalem over the last few days, but as they walk together and Jesus carefully explains the entirety of the scriptures from Moses to Malachi, and then as they invite him to supper and he sits before them and breaks the bread… they finally realize what has happened.  And then these disciples go running off to the other eleven yet again to proclaim that they, too, know for a fact that Jesus is risen, and what’s more, he appeared to them.  And Jesus, master of timing that he is… waits till just the right moment in Cleopas’ story before suddenly appearing again, this time right in their midst for all to see.  And even after two times being told what’s happened, after hearing that Jesus has appeared to these other two followers… it scares the pants off of the eleven when he shows up.  Jesus stands in their midst and says “Peace be with you” and all they can think is that they’re seeing a ghost.

I imagine Jesus handles all of this with a healthy dose of laughter - I think he tries to keep a straight face, to show his love and not humiliate the disciples here as he asks them why they are startled and why they still have doubts… but it must be hard for him not to laugh at the situation as it unfolds in front of him.  And so with a twinkle in his eye and a smile at least in the corner of his mouth if not broad across his face, he sets about proving that he is, in fact, flesh and blood.  He shows them his hands and his feet, maybe does a little spin or something… and with tears of joy in their eyes, the disciples are still wondering and questioning.  Jesus sighs, chuckles, and gets an idea: he asks them for something to eat, because there’s no way a ghost would be able to physically eat something.  This seems to do the trick, because it’s from here that Jesus is able to move on and get to the more important matters he wants to get to.

It’s a strange story… and yet I can’t help but feel a sense of wonder, myself, at the entire situation.  Strange as the story may be, it’s also amazing.  Because of all the things that Jesus could have done with his resurrection, of all the ways that Jesus could have shown himself to the disciples, even to the world to demonstrate the amazing power of God over even death itself… Jesus chooses instead to use his resurrection the same way he used his earthly life.  Jesus chooses to meet the disciples where they are, to enter into their situations of fear, of grief, and of uncertainty, and to take the time, even time after time, to show them that the promise of the Resurrection has been fulfilled.  He patiently shows them again and again that he is really alive and in the flesh, proves to them that he is not a ghost by letting them touch him and see that he is real, and then when they are still afraid even in the midst of their joy, he takes it the next step further to prove his reality by asking to share a meal with the disciples.

Jesus meets the disciples in the midst of their fears and anxieties and invites them to move through their fear by touching, tasting, and seeing - he speaks peace to them, and then proceeds to give them the peace that he proclaims.  And in the power of that revelation, the disciples are enabled to receive the rest of what is revealed through Christ - the meaning and power of the Scripture and the divine drive to go out and to reveal Christ to the rest of the world.

Amidst fear, uncertainty, and despair, Jesus proclaims peace, hope, and love, and it’s these same images that deeply infuse the writing in 1 John, which I have to admit is one of my utmost favorite books of the Bible.  John writes, “See what love the Father has given us; that we should be called the children of God; and that is what we are.”  John writes to a community that, even several decades after the disciples have encountered the risen Christ, finds itself not much better off than those original eleven men huddled in the upper room.  John writes to a people who seem to be seeking reassurance and guidance in a community that isn’t sure what to believe in a sea of different teachings and interpretations.  It seems that just as quickly as the disciples had been given that complete understanding of the scriptures, that understanding faded away and the church has been left once again to its own devices, trusting solely in the power of the Spirit to help determine the message and meaning of the Gospel in a world where everyone has their own explanation and understanding.

And so it is interesting that as John writes to this community of confusion, he doesn’t write with any specific certainty, himself - in fact, John follows in the same tradition of Christ by meeting them in their own uncertainties and acknowledging them: “what we will be has not yet been revealed.”  We don’t know exactly what the future will look like, how our ministry will ultimately culminate in this world and how we will go about seeing the Kingdom come that we continually pray for in our lives, but John reminds his community that what we do know is that we have received the promise that it will happen - that Christ has been revealed, that Christ will be revealed again, and that Christ continues to reveal himself in our midst through the power of the Spirit on a regular basis.  John reminds his people that, above all else, we are children of God, loved dearly by our own heavenly Father.  And that should be enough to continually give us hope.

And so here we find our own model for ministry, as well - just as we have been met by Christ in our own situations with love, everything we do as followers of Christ should be shaped by that same love.  God’s love for us revealed through Christ is the only ground on which we can stand firmly, and so it must be always at the center of what we do.  We won’t always know what that entails for us, nor can we always know what that’s supposed to look like.  We may even struggle with the very notion of God’s love as we wrestle with our own pain and doubts.  We don’t always know, we don’t always understand, we don’t always have the easy answers; but as we continue to look toward Christ’s love for us and strive to emulate that love in all that we do, we can be confident that Christ will continue to meet us in that sacred space, reminding us that we are loved and encouraging us to go out and reveal that same great love of God to the world, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.